The three Armed Forces have released a total of 5,160.59 acres of land in the North and the East to their original owners last year, the Defence Ministry Performance Report for the year 2017 has revealed.
The report was tabled in Parliament last week. Out of that 4,318 acres were state land while 842 acres were private land.
According to the report, 4811.34 acres of lands in the Northern Province and 349.25 acres of land in the Eastern Province occupied by the Three Forces have been returned to the original owners last year.
The Army has released 4,981.36 acres, the Navy 79.37 acres and the Air Force 99.86 acres in the North and the East. The returning of land to their original owners is part of the Government’s reconciliation and resettlement drive. The Defence Ministry provides assistance to re-establish the required camps.
The report stated that 54.29 acres of more land in the two Provinces are proposed to be released in 2018, out of which 47.50 acres are private land. “Necessary measures will be taken to release the maximum amount of lands which occupied by the Three Forces in Northern and Eastern Provinces to the original owners. The amount of land returned will be amended on the requirements arising from time to time,” the report stated.
The Army earlier confirmed that they have received part of the funds from the Ministry of Rehabilitation to relocate military camps and as soon as the balance is received, it will be able to release most of the remaining lands to their owners. The military has asked the Rehabilitation and Resettlement Ministry for around Rs. 880 million to relocate military installations in privately owned lands. Officials say that in some cases, even though the military has already released the lands, the owners could not get back immediately as there was no housing infrastructure. The Rehabilitation Ministry has estimated that nearly 30,000 more houses would be needed to complete resettlement. Opposition Leader R. Sampanthan and several other people’s representatives have held talks with President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe to seek the release of more lands to the original owners. Both President Sirisena and Prime Minister Wickremesinghe have stressed that national security will not be compromised in the process of returning the lands. They have pointed that there will be no overall reduction of the military infrastructure in the North.
The Army has however said that it is undergoing a process of “rightsizing” its troops in order to meet the different demands of peacetime and rejected reports that it was withdrawing many camps from the North. “This process does not allow any Army camp to be closed, but it instead enables the majority of troops in those camps be deployed for emergency disaster needs and nation-building tasks in an effective manner. Nevertheless, some false media reports try to claim that this process has led to a large let-up in the security arrangements in the North and East. It certainly is not a disbanding of battalions, but is only a restructuring with the intention of distributing human and material resources equally among other battalions. Sri Lanka Army under any circumstances will not resort to any decisions that would pose a threat to national security. It is therefore emphasized that the Sri Lanka Army as a responsible one will not close down any Army camp as alleged in those misleading reports,” it said in a news release.